“What a foolish question!”
“You’re mistaken,” said she. “Any woman would like you, and if a woman fell in love with you she’d be crazy about you.”
He laughed boyishly as at a huge joke.
“You’re a peculiar sort of man—a sort not many women would appreciate. If you find one who does, you’ll see that I was right. She’ll be a peculiar sort of woman and she’ll belong to you.”
There was pathos in his expression of gratitude. She saw it, understood it—and the tears welled into her eyes. What a lonely, fascinating figure of a man—so different from all other men—so modest about himself—and with such incredibly luminous eyes, tender yet strong. She was looking directly at him. The changing expression of his eyes terrified her—fascinated her. He stood up, and his gesture compelled her to stand also—and to look at him. He stretched out his powerful arm. She tried to draw back; she could not.
“I believe,” said he in an awed, hushed voice, his eyes looking at her wonderingly, “I believe you are the woman.”
He had misunderstood, she said to herself. Then— “No,” she thought, “I’ve been leading him on. What a foolish, bad thing to do! And he thinks I was in earnest—when nothing could induce me——”
He interrupted her thoughts with, “Yes—you are the woman!”
He had her shoulders in his grasp now and was looking down at her with an expression of sheer amazement, mingled with a tenderness that sent a thrill and a hot wave of—yes, of delight—through her. This man— She, Eleanor Clearwater, tolerate the touch of this man and—delight in it!
“That is absurd!” she cried hysterically. She looked at him with pleading eyes. “Let me go—please.”